Hubig’s gets approval to rebuild in the Marigny

The confectioner received City Council approval to build a bakery on a vacant lot in the Marigny. The board voted 7-0 to grant a conditional use permit to the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. The school owns the land bounded by Burgundy, North Rampart, Saint Ferdinand and Press streets on which Hubig’s has proposed building a two-story, 16,000-square-foot building facing North Rampart Street.

The property is zoned for light-industrial use, but owners are still required to get a permit under law.

Several adults and a child wearing Hubig’s shirts and beads were on hand to support the request Thursday. New Orleanians have been without the beloved sugar-glazed pies for nearly a year, since Hubig’s longtime home on Dauphine Street was destroyed in a fire.

Ideally Hubig’s Pies will be on store shelves again within a year, Drew Ramsey, a member of one of the two families that owns Hubig’s said earlier this month.

Opposition on Thursday came from two residents who live nearby and expressed concern about the size of the proposed building and increased traffic in the neighborhood.

Rita Chapman who lives next door to the planned development said she is happy that Hubig’s is returning to New Orleans but worried that the two-story building will impose on her quality of life.

“I believe that the size is too large,” Chapman said. “I’ll be able to reach out from my back porch and touch the property.”

Gary DeLeaumont questioned whether light-industrial zoning was the best use of the property.

“It’s just going to be overbuilt,” DeLeaumont said. “If they would just look at a different location.”

Hubig’s has not said that it will definitely build at the NOCCA site. The company also is considering its former site at 2417 Dauphine St. in Faubourg Marigny and the Lighthouse for the Blind on State Street in Uptown.